Asbestos can cause several malignant and non-malignant conditions, but one of the most aggressive and often hard-to-diagnose is mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare type of tumour that forms in the lining of the lungs, heart, or abdomen, caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibres.

Mesothelioma can take upwards of a decade to form, and the life expectancy of someone with this condition is around 12 months from diagnosis. Playing a big part in this short life expectancy is the challenging diagnosis process and room for misdiagnosis. And that’s where artificial intelligence, or AI, comes in.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

In our everyday world, you would have seen AI in the form of virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa and even self-driving technology in Tesla. But in the medical world, AI looks a little different.

Oxford University researchers interpreted AI as intelligence from humans, put into coding form, then applied to AI technology. In the medical world, AI becomes useful for clerical work and even detecting and treating cancers.

How Can AI Prove Useful in Mesothelioma Diagnosis?

Diagnostic practices in the past, and even today, have lacked early detection technology. The standard diagnostic process only begins when symptoms do. At that point, mesothelioma can be so advanced that the sufferer's life expectancy is mere months.

When presented with one symptomatic patient, doctors collect a medical history, which can include asbestos exposure. They may then perform a physical exam and order tests like CT scans and x-rays if they suspect cancer.

Biopsies, while intrusive, are also used to provide an accurate mesothelioma diagnosis. Once again, it’s only once advanced symptoms present themselves that doctors can make that grim diagnosis.

But AI is a game-changer in this respect – or is looking like it at least might be. By collecting and storing data and recognising patterns, it can look for benign and malignant lesions in imaging that may not be visible to the human eye. This is now being called computer-aided detection/diagnosis by researchers.

MesoNet – a Deep-Learning Programme

With the prospect of being able to pick up lesions before they appear visible to the human eye, there’s plenty to be excited about in the medical world right now. In October 2019, Owkin researchers created a deep-learning programmed called MesoNet.

This programme aimed to identify potential mesothelioma patients by scanning their tissue samples and using AI to understand who would respond better to which treatment method. When doctors can diagnose and address cancer before it spreads, they have various treatment options at their disposal, such as surgery, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy.

Centre Leon Berard cancer institute pathologists in Lyon, France, verified this model for being able to predict patients and identify new biomarkers in the tumour microenvironment that could predict survival.

AI Success in Cancer Detection

After the creation of the MesoNet programme, a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School observed how this new technology worked. They noted that AI technology could reduce a radiologist’s workload while increasing efficiency. But that wasn’t the end of the surprising benefits.

They observed just a 2.9 per cent error rate in breast cancer diagnoses from biopsy slide imagery. When pairing AI technology with a pathologist’s input, that error rate was as low as 0.5 per cent.

Within the MesoNet programme, the AI technology successfully detected the features of tumours after scanning around 3,000 image samples.

Also included in the study by Harvard Medical School researchers was the comparison to current and past diagnostic measures. One in five breast cancer screenings fail to detect cancer, even when it’s present. This is known as a false negative.

Using artificial intelligence in a study showed a reduction in false negatives of 9.4 per cent and a 5.7 per cent reduction in false positives. There is potential for AI to reduce unnecessary procedures and decrease healthcare costs.

Signs of Mesothelioma

While AI advancements in the medical field for mesothelioma are being made all the time, it’s important not to get complacent with your own health. If you have been exposed or potentially exposed to asbestos fibres at some point of your life, being aware of changes in your health is crucial.

Signs of pleural mesothelioma include:

• Chest or lower back pain

• Shortness of breath

• Coughing

• Trouble swallowing (almost as if food is getting stuck)

• Facial or arm swelling

• Hoarseness

Signs of peritoneal mesothelioma include:

• Abdominal pain

• Abdominal swelling or fluid in the abdomen

• Nausea and vomiting

• Constipation

Signs of pericardial mesothelioma include:

• Chest pain

• Irregular heart rhythm

• Shortness of breath

• Heart murmur

General mesothelioma symptoms include:

• Excessive sweating

• Fever

• Fatigue

• Blood clots

• Weight loss

• Loss of appetite

Take Care of Yourself and Your Property

The import, export, and use of asbestos may be a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still in our midst. Whether you’ve been exposed to asbestos in the past or will be working with it in the future, it’s important to look after your health. See a GP if you have any concerns, and rely on licenced, qualified asbestos removalists for any asbestos removal or maintenance tasks.